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* Rewrite user section and change chapter organization

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recursive: true
submodule_update_remote: true
pipeline:
dead_links:
image: becheran/mlc:latest
commands:
- mlc src/en --ignore-links "*localhost*" --ignore-links "*127.0.0.1*" --ignore-links /api
check_formatting:
image: alpine:3
commands:
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- apt-get install git curl -y
- ./update-includes.sh
- mdbook build .
dead_links:
image: becheran/mlc:latest
commands:
- mlc src/en --ignore-links "*localhost*" --ignore-links "*127.0.0.1*" --ignore-links /api

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# Summary
- [About](about/about.md)
- [Features](about/features.md)
- [Post and Comment Ranking](about/ranking.md)
- [Guide](about/guide.md)
- [Administration](administration/administration.md)
- [Install with Docker](administration/install_docker.md)
- [Install with Ansible](administration/install_ansible.md)
- [Install from Scratch](administration/from_scratch.md)
- [Install on AWS](administration/on_aws.md)
- [First Steps](administration/first_steps.md)
- [Configuration](administration/configuration.md)
- [Theming Guide](administration/theming.md)
- [Getting started with Federation](administration/federation_getting_started.md)
- [Troubleshooting](administration/troubleshooting.md)
- [Backup and Restore](administration/backup_and_restore.md)
- [Using Caddy as a reverse proxy](administration/caddy.md)
- [Moderation](moderation/moderation.md)
- [Introduction](introduction.md)
# For Users
- [Getting Started](users/01-getting-started.md)
- [Media](users/02-media.md)
- [Votes and Ranking](users/03-votes-and-ranking.md)
- [Moderation](users/04-moderation.md)
- [Censorship Resistance](users/05-censorship-resistance.md)
- [Other Features](users/06-other-features.md)
- [History of Lemmy](users/07-history-of-lemmy.md)
# For Admins
- [Administration](admins/administration.md)
- [Install with Docker](admins/install_docker.md)
- [Install with Ansible](admins/install_ansible.md)
- [Install from Scratch](admins/from_scratch.md)
- [Install on AWS](admins/on_aws.md)
- [First Steps](admins/first_steps.md)
- [Configuration](admins/configuration.md)
- [Theming Guide](admins/theming.md)
- [Getting started with Federation](admins/federation_getting_started.md)
- [Troubleshooting](admins/troubleshooting.md)
- [Backup and Restore](admins/backup_and_restore.md)
- [Using Caddy as a reverse proxy](admins/caddy.md)
# For Developers
- [Federation](federation/federation.md)
- [Federation Overview](federation/overview.md)
- [Lemmy Protocol](federation/lemmy_protocol.md)
@ -31,4 +43,7 @@
- [Federation Development](contributing/federation_development.md)
- [Release Process](contributing/release_process.md)
- [Resources](contributing/resources.md)
# Code of Conduct
- [Code of Conduct](code_of_conduct.md)

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> This document is available in many language thanks to the contributor. To change the language, click the globe icon above.
## About The Project
| Front Page | Post |
| ------------------------------- | ------------------------------- |
| ![main screen](main_screen.png) | ![chat screen](chat_screen.png) |
[Lemmy](https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy) is similar to sites like [Reddit](https://reddit.com), [Lobste.rs](https://lobste.rs), [Raddle](https://raddle.me), or [Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/): you subscribe to forums you're interested in, post links and discussions, then vote, and comment on them. Behind the scenes, it is very different; anyone can easily run a server, and all these servers are federated (think email), and connected to the same universe, called the [Fediverse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse).
_The word “fediverse” (federated universe) refers to the network of all Lemmy servers [and other projects](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/06/why-activitypub-is-the-future/), users of which are able to talk to each other seamlessly._
Like email, whether you sign up on GMail or Outlook, you know you’ll be able to email everyone you need to, as long as you know their address. On Lemmy you're able to subscribe to communities on any other server, and can have discussions with users registered elsewhere.
The overall goal is to create an easily self-hostable, decentralized alternative to reddit and other link aggregators, without a single company running the show.
There are no shareholders, and no targeted advertising: only people sharing the things they want to share with each other.
Each lemmy server can set its own moderation policy; appointing site-wide admins, and community moderators to keep out the trolls, and foster a healthy, non-toxic environment where all can feel comfortable contributing.
_Note: Federation is still in active development_
### Why's it called Lemmy?
- Lead singer from [Motörhead](https://invidio.us/watch?v=pWB5JZRGl0U).
- The old school [video game](<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemmings_(video_game)>).
- The [Koopa from Super Mario](https://www.mariowiki.com/Lemmy_Koopa).
- The [furry rodents](http://sunchild.fpwc.org/lemming-the-little-giant-of-the-north/).
### Built With
- [Rust](https://www.rust-lang.org)
- [Actix](https://actix.rs/)
- [Diesel](http://diesel.rs/)
- [Inferno](https://infernojs.org)
- [Typescript](https://www.typescriptlang.org/)

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# Features
- Open source, [AGPL License](https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/blob/main/LICENSE).
- Self hostable, easy to deploy.
- Comes with [Docker](#docker) and [Ansible](#ansible).
- Clean, mobile-friendly interface.
- Only a minimum of a username and password is required to sign up!
- User avatar support.
- Live-updating Comment threads.
- Full vote scores `(+/-)` like old reddit.
- Themes, including light, dark, and solarized.
- Emojis with autocomplete support. Start typing `:`
- User tagging using `@`, Community tagging using `!`.
- Integrated image uploading in both posts and comments.
- A post can consist of a title and any combination of self text, a URL, or nothing else.
- Notifications, on comment replies and when you're tagged.
- Notifications can be sent via email.
- i18n / internationalization support.
- RSS / Atom feeds for `All`, `Subscribed`, `Inbox`, `User`, and `Community`.
- Cross-posting support.
- A _similar post search_ when creating new posts. Great for question / answer communities.
- Moderation abilities.
- Public Moderation Logs.
- Can sticky posts to the top of communities.
- Both site admins, and community moderators, who can appoint other moderators.
- Can lock, remove, and restore posts and comments.
- Can ban and unban users from communities and the site.
- Can transfer site and communities to others.
- Can fully erase your data, replacing all posts and comments.
- NSFW post / community support.
- High performance.
- Server is written in rust.
- Front end is `~80kB` gzipped.
- Front end works without javascript (read-only).
- Supports arm64 / Raspberry Pi.

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# Lemmy Quick Start Guide
So you want to join Lemmy and get posting. Great! Here's how to dive straight in.
## Where do I sign up?
The first thing you have to do is **choose your server**. This is an extra step compared to sites like Reddit, but isn’t as difficult as it may seem.
_Like with email, your identity is hosted by the server you sign up on. So for example, I joined lemmy.ml so to mention me you can type @retiolus@lemmy.ml in your post._
If what you want to talk about most fits into a clear category (maybe it’s video games or art or queer life or coding or fiction, etc) then it might be worth making your first server one where that will primarily host that sort of content – it’ll be easier to make connections and find like-minded folk. Think of your server as a neighbourhood or a venue, where the general chatter can have a specific focus.
_You have the ability to view all public local posts that have been made by people on your server in the “Local” tab._
If you aren’t here to stick mainly to one topic, you’ll likely want to pick a server that caters to general interests. Either way, there’s a helpful servers list on [join-lemmy.org](https://join-lemmy.org/instances).
**Don’t panic!** You’ll be able to chatter to people on other servers, no matter which one you choose. Remember, this is like email, and you can still email your mum on her ancient Yahoo account from your GMail, for example.
## Knowing your server
Take a moment before registering to check out the rules of your chosen server and make sure they are compatible with how you want to be posting.
Servers usually define their rules in a simple way on the sidebar on the right of the site. From top to bottom, you will usually find the list of "Trending communities" followed by "Subscribed to communities", a brief description of the server, the rules, some stats and the username of the administrators.
Admins are super friendly people who are usually running the server out of their own pocket, so it’s good to get to know them. Many accept donations to cover the running costs and if you’re able to contribute then it’s always appreciated.
## I think I found my new home!
Head to the Login page `(https://your.server/login)` of your server and choose your username and password in the sign up form. You don't need an email to register, but this is the only way to reset your password if you lose it.
Next thing to do is upload your profile picture, give the settings page `(https://your.server/settings)` a good once-over (and do come back to it when you’ve been on Lemmy a week or so just to make any tweaks that might help your experience) and get ready to introduce yourself.
_Some interesting settings worth checking are: your default feed sorting filter between subscribed, local or all and your default sorting type._
While you can simply enjoy reading Lemmy, the real fun begins as you dive in and start participating yourself by posting, voting and commenting.
To share a post, click the “Create Post” button on the top side of the screen. You’ll be taken to a form where you can enter a URL of the link or upload your image, and input a title and body for the post. You will also need to enter the community where you’d like your post to appear. Before doing so, it’s a good idea to head to that communitie’s page and read the posting guidelines that appear on the right side of the screen. This will ensure you are abiding by the particular ethos of the community. For example, on the [`!privacy@lemmy.ml`](https://lemmy.ml/c/privacy) community, you are not allowed to promote proprietary software.
When all the fields are filled out, click “Create” and your post will go live.
By writing a new post or comment, start typing...
- `@a_user_name` to get a list of usernames.
- `!a_community` to get a list of communities.
- `:emoji` to get a list of emojis.
## A quick tour of the web interface
![interface.png](interface.png)
The standard Lemmy interface has a single feed. You can change the content of the feed by using the filters:
**Subscribed** includes the posts of people on your server and on other servers, all that matters is that it’s community you follow.
**Local** is the feed of all the posts of communities on your server. On many servers, particularly smaller ones and ones focused on a particular topic, this is where the magic happens. You can reply to people from there, and it’s a great place to meet people who share the same interests as you.
**All**, or the **federated timeline**, is a view of all the public posts your servers knows about from across the whole network (including local ones). The most common reason that something appears in the federated timeline is that someone from your server might follow a community that's on another server.
| Type | Description |
| ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Posts | Only displays publications |
| Comments | Displays only comments |
| \-\-\- | \-\-\- |
| Active | Trending sort based on the score, and the most recent comment time. |
| Hot | Trending sort based on the score, and the post creation time. |
| New | The newest items. |
| Most Comments | The posts with the most comments. |
| New Comments | The posts with most recent comments, IE a forum-style sort. |
| Top | The highest scoring items in the given time frame. |
For more detail, check the [Post and Comment Ranking details](https://join-lemmy.org/docs/en/about/ranking.html).
## Using Markdown
Lemmy's posts are done using Markdown, there are of course shortcuts for you to use when writing but here is a table to help you if you want to go further.
| Type | Or | … to Get |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| \*Italic\* | \_Italic\_ | _Italic_ |
| \*\*Bold\*\* | \_\_Bold\_\_ | **Bold** |
| \# Heading 1 | Heading 1 <br> ========= | <h4>Heading 1</h4> |
| \## Heading 2 | Heading 2 <br>--------- | <h5>Heading 2</h5> |
| \[Link\](http://a.com) | \[Link\]\[1\]<br>⋮ <br>\[1\]: http://b.org | [Link](https://commonmark.org/) |
| !\[Image\](http://url/a.png) | !\[Image\]\[1\]<br>⋮ <br>\[1\]: http://url/b.jpg | ![Markdown](https://commonmark.org/help/images/favicon.png) |
| \> Blockquote | | <blockquote>Blockquote</blockquote> |
| \* List <br>\* List <br>\* List | \- List <br>\- List <br>\- List <br> | _ List <br>_ List <br>\* List <br> |
| 1\. One <br>2\. Two <br>3\. Three | 1) One<br>2) Two<br>3) Three | 1. One<br>2. Two<br>3. Three |
| Horizontal Rule <br>\--- | Horizontal Rule<br>\*\*\* | Horizontal Rule <br><hr> |
| \`Inline code\` with backticks | | `Inline code` with backticks |
| \`\`\`<br>\# code block <br>print '3 backticks or'<br>print 'indent 4 spaces' <br>\`\`\` | ····\# code block<br>····print '3 backticks or'<br>····print 'indent 4 spaces' | \# code block <br>print '3 backticks or'<br>print 'indent 4 spaces' |
| ::: spoiler hidden or nsfw stuff<br>_a bunch of spoilers here_<br>::: | | <details><summary> hidden or nsfw stuff </summary><p><em>a bunch of spoilers here</em></p></details> |
| Some ~subscript~ text | | Some <sub>subscript</sub> text |
| Some ^superscript^ text | | Some <sup>superscript</sup> text |
[CommonMark Tutorial](https://commonmark.org/help/tutorial/)

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# Trending / Hot / Best Sorting algorithm
## Goals
- During the day, new posts and comments should be near the top, so they can be voted on.
- After a day or so, the time factor should go away.
- Use a log scale, since votes tend to snowball, and so the first 10 votes are just as important as the next hundred.
## Implementations
### Reddit
Does not take the lifetime of the thread into account, [giving early comments an overwhelming advantage over later ones,](https://minimaxir.com/2016/11/first-comment/) with the effect being even worse in small communities. New comments pool at the bottom of the thread, effectively killing off discussion and making each thread a race to comment early. This lowers the quality of conversation and rewards comments that are repetitive and spammy.
### Hacker News
While far superior to Reddit's implementation for its decay of scores over time, [Hacker News' ranking algorithm](https://medium.com/hacking-and-gonzo/how-hacker-news-ranking-algorithm-works-1d9b0cf2c08d) does not use a logarithmic scale for scores.
### Lemmy
Counterbalances the snowballing effect of votes over time with a logarithmic scale. Negates the inherent advantage of early comments while still ensuring that votes still matter in the long-term, not nuking older popular comments.
```
Rank = ScaleFactor * log(Max(1, 3 + Score)) / (Time + 2)^Gravity
Score = Upvotes - Downvotes
Time = time since submission (in hours)
Gravity = Decay gravity, 1.8 is default
```
- Lemmy uses the same `Rank` algorithm above, in two sorts: `Active`, and `Hot`.
- `Active` uses the post votes, and latest comment time (limited to two days).
- `Hot` uses the post votes, and the post published time.
- Use Max(1, score) to make sure all comments are affected by time decay.
- Add 3 to the score, so that everything that has less than 3 downvotes will seem new. Otherwise all new comments would stay at zero, near the bottom.
- The sign and abs of the score are necessary for dealing with the log of negative scores.
- A scale factor of 10k gets the rank in integer form.
A plot of rank over 24 hours, of scores of 1, 5, 10, 100, 1000, with a scale factor of 10k.
![](rank_algorithm.png)
#### Active User counts
Lemmy also shows counts of _active users_ for your site, and its communities. These are counted within the last `day`, `week`, `month`, and `half year`, and are cached on starting up lemmy, and every hour.
An active user is someone who has posted or commented on our instance or community within the last given time frame. For site counts, only local users are counted. For community counts, federated users are included.

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@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ The first thing to do is to go to your admin panel, which can be found by clicki
Take the time to browse through the entire page to discover the different options you have to customize your Lemmy instance, on the same page you can edit your [configuration file](configuration.md), where you can find information about your database, the email used by the server, the federation options or who is the main administrator.
It is always good to define another administrator than yourself, in case it is necessary to take actions while you take your best nap. Take a look at the [moderation guide](../moderation/moderation.md) for more information on how to do this.
It is always good to define another administrator than yourself, in case it is necessary to take actions while you take your best nap. Take a look at the [moderation guide](../users/04-moderation.md) for more information on how to do this.
## Check that everything is working properly

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Note that federation is currently in alpha. **Only use it for testing**, not on any production server, and be aware that turning on federation may break your instance.
Follow the normal installation instructions, either with [Ansible](../administration/install_ansible.md) or
[manually](../administration/install_docker.md). Then replace the line `image: dessalines/lemmy:v0.x.x` in
Follow the normal installation instructions, either with [Ansible](../admins/install_ansible.md) or
[manually](../admins/install_docker.md). Then replace the line `image: dessalines/lemmy:v0.x.x` in
`/lemmy/docker-compose.yml` with `image: dessalines/lemmy:federation`.
Afterwards, and whenever you want to update to the latest version, run these commands on the server:

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## Introduction
Lemmy is a selfhosted, federated social link aggregation and discussion forum. It consists of many different communities which are focused on different topics. Users can post text, links or images and discuss it with others. Voting helps to bring the most interesting items to the top. There are strong moderation tools to keep out spam and trolls. All this is completely free and open, not controlled by any company. This means that there is no advertising, tracking, or secret algorithms.
Federation is a form of decentralization. Instead of a single central service that everyone uses, there are multiple services that any number of people can use.
A Lemmy website can operate alone. Just like a traditional website, people sign up on it, post messages, upload pictures and talk to each other. Unlike a traditional website, Lemmy instances can interoperate, letting their users communicate with each other; just like you can send an email from your Gmail account to someone from Outlook, Fastmail, Protonmail, or any other email provider, as long as you know their email address, you can mention or message anyone on any website using their address.
Lemmy uses a standardized, open protocol to implement federation which is called ActivityPub. Any software that likewise implements federation via ActivityPub can seamlessly communicate with Lemmy, just like Lemmy instances communicate with one another.
The fediverse ("federated universe") is the name for all instances that can communicate with each other over ActivityPub and the World Wide Web. That includes all Lemmy servers, but also other implementations:
- [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/) (microblogging)
- [PeerTube](https://joinpeertube.org/) (videos)
- [Friendica](https://friendi.ca/) (multi-purpose)
- and many more!
In practical terms: Imagine if you could follow an Facebook group from your Reddit account and comment on its posts without leaving your account. If Facebook and Reddit were federated services that used the same protocol, that would be possible. With a Lemmy account, you can communicate with any other compatible instance, even if it is not running on Lemmy. All that is necessary is that the software support the same subset of the ActivityPub protocol.
Unlike proprietary services, anyone has the complete freedom to run, examine, inspect, copy, modify, distribute, and reuse the Lemmy source code. Just like how users of Lemmy can choose their service provider, you as an individual are free to contribute features to Lemmy or publish a modified version of Lemmy that includes different features. These modified versions, also known as software forks, are required to also uphold the same freedoms as the original Lemmy project. Because Lemmy is libre software that respects your freedom, personalizations are not only allowed but encouraged.
<sub>You can contribute to this documentation in the [git repository](https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-docs/pull/172).</sub>
<sub>This page is adapted from [Mastodon documentation](https://docs.joinmastodon.org/) under CC BY-SA 4.0.</sub>

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# Moderation actions
On Lemmy a **moderator** is someone who manages and has rights over a community.
The **community creator** is this first **moderator** of a community since he created it.
An **administrator** has full rights on the entire server, and thus also in each community.
| Action | Result | Permission level |
| ---------------- | ------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------- |
| lock | Prevents making new comments under the post | Moderator |
| sticky | Pin the publication to the top of the community listing | Moderator |
| remove | Delete the post | Moderator |
| ban | Ban user from the community | Moderator |
| appoint as mod | Gives the user moderator status | Moderator |
| appoint as admin | Gives the user administrator status | Admin |
| ban from site | Ban user from the server | Admin |
To take a moderation action on a user, you need a post from that user and click on the 3 dots at the bottom right of the title.
To undo an action previously taken on a user, the same process must be followed. As an example, if a post is locked, click on the lock icon again to unlock it.
![more_button.png](more_button.png)

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## Choosing an instance
If you are used to sites like Reddit, then Lemmy works in a fundamentally different way. Instead of a single website like reddit.com, there are many different websites (called _instances_). These are operated by different people, have different topics and rules. Nevertheless, posts created one instance can directly be seen by users who are registered on another. Its basically like email, but for social media.
This means before using Lemmy and registering an account, you need to pick an instance. For this you can browse the [instance list](https://join-lemmy.org/instances) and look for one that matches your topics of interest. You can also see if the rules match your expectations, and how many users there are. It is better to avoid very big or very small instances. But don't worry too much about this choice, you can always create another account on a different instance later.
[instance list screenshot]
## Registration
Once you chose an instance, it's time to create your account. To do this, click _sign up_ in the top right of the page, or click the top right button on mobile to open a menu with _sign up_ link.
[registration page screenshot]
On the signup page you need to enter a few things:
- **Username**: How do you want to be called? This name can not be changed and is unique within an instance. Later you can also set a _displayname_ which can be freely changed. If your desired username is taken, consider choosing a different instance where it is still available.
- **Email**: Your email address. This is used for password resets and notifications (if enabled). Providing an email address is usually optional, but admins may choose to make it mandatory. In this case you will have to wait for a confirmation mail and click the link after completing this form.
- **Password**: The password for logging in to your account. Make sure to choose a long and unique password which isn't used on any other website.
- **Verify password**: Repeat the same password from above to ensure that it was entered correctly.
There are also a few optional fields, which you may need to fill in depending on the instance configuration:
- **Question/Answer**: Instance admins can set an arbitrary question which needs to be answered in order to create an account. This is often used to prevent spam bots from signing up. After submitting the form, you will need to wait for some time until the answer is approved manually before you can login.
- **Code**: A captcha which is easy to solve for humans but hard for bots. Enter the letters and numbers that you see in the text box, ignoring uppercase or lowercase. Click the refresh button if you are unable to read a character. The _play_ button plays an audio version of the captcha.
- **Show NSFW content**: Here you can choose if content that is "not safe for work" (or adult-only) should be shown.
When you are done, press the _sign up_ button.
It depends on the instance configuration when you can login and start using the account. In case the email is mandatory, you need to wait for the confirmation email and click the link first. In case "Question/Answer" is present, you need to wait for an admin to manually review and approve your registration. If you have problems with the registration, try to get in contact with the admin for support. You can also choose a different instance to sign up if your primary choice does not work.
## Following communities
After logging in to your new account, its time to follow communities that you are interested in. For this you can click on the _communities_ link at the top of the page (on mobile, you need to click the menu icon on the top right first). You will see a list of communities which can be filtered by subscribed, local or all. Local communities are those which are hosted on the same site where you are signed in, while _all_ also contains federated communities from other instances. In any case you can directly subscribe to communities with the right-hand subscribe link. Or click on the community name to browse the community first, see what its posted and what the rules are before subscribing.
Another way to find communities to subscribe to is by going to the front page and browsing the posts. If there is something that interests you, click on the post title to see more details and comments. Here you can subscribe to the community in the right-hand sidebar, or by clicking the "sidebar" button on mobile.
These previous ways will only show communities that are already known to the instance. Especially if you joined a small or inactive Lemmy instance, there will be few communities to discover. You can find more communities by browsing different Lemmy instances, or using the [Lemmy Community Browser](https://browse.feddit.de/). When you found a community that you want to follow, enter its URL (e.g. `https://feddit.de/c/main`) or the identifier (e.g. `!main@feddit.de`) into the search field of your own Lemmy instance. Lemmy will then fetch the community from its original instance, and allow you to interact with it. The same method also works to fetch users, posts or comments from other instances.
## Setting up your profile
Before you start posting, its a good idea to provide some details about yourself. Open the top-right menu and go to "settings". Here the following settings are available for your public profile:
- **Displayname**: An alternative username which can be changed at any time
- **Bio**: Long description of yourself, can be formatted with Markdown
- **Matrix User**: Your username on the decentralized [Matrix chat](https://matrix.org/)
- **Avatar**: Profile picture that is shown next to all your posts
- **Banner**: A header image for your profile page
On this page you can also change the email and password. Additionally there are many other settings available, which allow customizing your browsing experience:
- **Blocks** (tab at top of the page): Here you can block users and communities, so that their posts will be hidden.
- **Interface language**: Which language the user interface should use.
- **Languages**: Select the languages that you speak to see only content in these languages. This is a new feature and many posts don't specify a language yet, so be sure to select "Undetermined" to see them.
- **Theme**: You can choose between different color themes for the user interface. Instance admins can add more themes.
- **Type**: Which timeline you want to see by default on the frontpage; only posts from communities that you subscribe to, posts in local communities, or all posts including federated.
- **Sort type**: How posts and comments should be sorted by default. See [05-votes-and-ranking] for details.
- **Show NSFW content**: Whether or not you want to see content that is "not safe for work" (or adult-only).
- **Show Scores**: Whether the number of upvotes and downvotes should be visible.
- **Show Avatars**: Whether profile pictures of other users should be shown.
- **Bot Account**: Enable this if you are using a script or program to create posts automatically
- **Show Bot Accounts**: Disable this to hide posts that were created by bot accounts.
- **Show Read Posts**: If this is disabled, posts that you already viewed are not shown in listings anymore. Useful if you want to find new content easily, but makes it difficult to follow ongoing discussion under existing posts.
- **Show Notifications for New Posts**: Enable this to receive a popup notification for each new post that is created.
- **Send notifications to Email**: Enable to receive notifications about new comment replies and private messages to your email address.
## Start posting
Finally its time to start posting! To do this it is always a good idea to read the community rules in the sidebar (below the _Subscribe_ button). When you are ready, go to a post and type your comment in the box directly below for a top-level reply. You can also write a nested reply to an existing comment, by clicking the left-pointing arrow.
Other than commenting on existing posts, you can also create new posts. To do this, click the button _Create a post_ in the sidebar. Here you can optionally supply an external link or upload an image. The title field is mandatory and should describe what you are posting. The body is again optional, and gives space for long texts. You can also embed additional images here. The _Community_ dropdown below allows choosing a different community to post in. With _NSFW_ posts can be marked as "not safe for work". Finally you can specify the language that the post is written in, and then click on _Create_.
One more possibility is to write private messages to individual users. To do this, simply visit a user profile and click _Send message_. You will be notified about new private messages and comment replies with the bell icon in the top right.

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## Text
The main type of content in Lemmy is text which can be formatted with Markdown. Refer to the table below for supported formatting rules. The Lemmy user interface also provides buttons for formatting, so it's not necessary to remember all of it. You can also follow the interactive [CommonMark tutorial](https://commonmark.org/help/tutorial/) to get started.
| Type | Or | … to Get |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| \*Italic\* | \_Italic\_ | _Italic_ |
| \*\*Bold\*\* | \_\_Bold\_\_ | **Bold** |
| \# Heading 1 | Heading 1 <br> ========= | <h4>Heading 1</h4> |
| \## Heading 2 | Heading 2 <br>--------- | <h5>Heading 2</h5> |
| \[Link\](http://a.com) | \[Link\]\[1\]<br>⋮ <br>\[1\]: http://b.org | [Link](https://commonmark.org/) |
| !\[Image\](http://url/a.png) | !\[Image\]\[1\]<br>⋮ <br>\[1\]: http://url/b.jpg | ![Markdown](https://commonmark.org/help/images/favicon.png) |
| \> Blockquote | | <blockquote>Blockquote</blockquote> |
| \* List <br>\* List <br>\* List | \- List <br>\- List <br>\- List <br> | _ List <br>_ List <br>\* List <br> |
| 1\. One <br>2\. Two <br>3\. Three | 1) One<br>2) Two<br>3) Three | 1. One<br>2. Two<br>3. Three |
| Horizontal Rule <br>\--- | Horizontal Rule<br>\*\*\* | Horizontal Rule <br><hr> |
| \`Inline code\` with backticks | | `Inline code` with backticks |
| \`\`\`<br>\# code block <br>print '3 backticks or'<br>print 'indent 4 spaces' <br>\`\`\` | ····\# code block<br>····print '3 backticks or'<br>····print 'indent 4 spaces' | \# code block <br>print '3 backticks or'<br>print 'indent 4 spaces' |
| ::: spoiler hidden or nsfw stuff<br>_a bunch of spoilers here_<br>::: | | <details><summary> hidden or nsfw stuff </summary><p><em>a bunch of spoilers here</em></p></details> |
| Some ~subscript~ text | | Some <sub>subscript</sub> text |
| Some ^superscript^ text | | Some <sup>superscript</sup> text |
[CommonMark Tutorial](https://commonmark.org/help/tutorial/)
## Images and video
Lemmy also allows sharing images and videos. To upload an image, go to the _Create post_ page and click the little image icon under the _URL_ field. This allows you to select a local image. If you made a mistake, a popup message allows you to delete the image. The same image button also allows uploading videos in .gif format. Instead of uploading a local file, you can also simply paste the URL of an image or video from another website.
Note that this functionality is not meant to share large images or videos, because that would require too many server resources. Instead, upload them on another platform like [Peertube](https://joinpeertube.org/) or [Pixelfed](https://pixelfed.org/), and share the link on Lemmy.

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## Votes and ranking
Lemmy uses a voting system to sort post listings. On the left side of each post are up and down arrows, which let you _upvote_ or _downvote_ it. You can upvote posts that you like so that more users will see them. Or downvote posts so that they are less likely to be seen. Each post receives a score which is the number of upvotes minus number of downvotes.
When browsing the frontpage or a community, you can choose between the following sort types for posts:
- **Active** (default): Calculates a rank based on the score and time of the latest comment, with decay over time. See [this page] for more details
- **Hot**: Like active, but uses time when the post was published
- **New**: Shows most recent posts first
- **Old**: Shows oldest posts first
- **Most Comments**: Shows posts with highest number of comments first
- **New Comments**: Bumps posts to the top when they receive a new reply Analogous to the sorting of traditional forums.
- **Top Day**: Highest scoring posts during the last 24 hours
- **Top Week**: Highest scoring posts during the last 7 days
- **Top Month**: Highest scoring posts during the last 30 days
- **Top Year**: Highest scoring posts during the last 12 months
- **Top All Time**: Highest scoring posts during all time
Comments are by default arranged in a hierarchy which shows at a glance who it is replying to. Top-level comments which reply directly to a post are on the very left, not indented at all. Comments that are responding to top-level comments are indented one level, and each further level of indentation means that the comment is deeper in the conversation. With this layout it is always easy to see the context for a given comment, simply scroll up to the next comment which is indented one level less.
Comments can be sorted in the following ways. These all keep the indentation intact, so only replies to the same parent are shuffled around.
- **Hot** (default): Equivalent to the _Hot_ sort for posts
- **Top**: Shows comments with highest score first
- **New**: Shows most recent comments first
- **Old**: Shows oldest comments first
Additionally there is a sort option **Chat**. This eliminates the hierarchy, and puts all comments on the top level, with newest comments shown at the top. It is useful to see new replies at any point in the conversation, but makes it difficult to see the context.

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## Moderation
The internet is full of bots, trolls and other malicious actors. Sooner or later they will post unwanted content to any website that is open to the public. It is the task of administrators and moderators to remove such unwanted content. Lemmy provides many tools for this, from removing individual posts, over temporary bans, to removing all content from an offending user.
Moderation in Lemmy is divided between administrators and moderators. Admins are responsible for the entire instance, and can take action on any content. They are also the only ones who can completely ban users. In contrast, moderators are only responsible for a single community. Where admins can ban a user from the entire instance, mods can only ban them from their community.
The most important thing that normal users can do if they notice a rule breaking post is to use the report function. If you notice such a post, click the flag icon to notify mods and admins. This way they can take action quickly and remove the offending content. To find out about removals and other mod actions, you can use the mod log which is linked at the bottom of the page. In some cases there may be content that you personally dislike, but which doesn't violate any rules. For this exists a block function which hides all posts from a given user or community.
Each instance has a set of rules to let users know which content is allowed or not. These rules can be found in the sidebar and apply to all local communities on that instance. Some communities may have their own rules in the respective sidebar, which apply in addition to the instance rules.
Because Lemmy is decentralized, there is no single moderation team for the platform, nor any platform-wide rules. Instead each instance is responsible to create and enforce its own moderation policy. This means that two Lemmy instances can have rules that completely disagree or even contradict. This can lead to problems if they interact with each other, because by default federation is open to any instance that speaks the same protocol. To handle such cases, administrators can choose to block federation with specific instances. To be even safer, they can also choose to federated only with instances that are allowed explicitly.
### How to moderate
To get moderator powers, you either need to create a new community, or be appointed by an existing moderator. Similarly to become an admin, you need to create a new instance, or be appointed by an existing instance admin. Community moderation can be done over federation, you don't need to be registered on the same instance where the community is hosted. To be an instance administrator, you need an account on that specific instance. Admins and moderators are organized in a hierarchy, where the user who is listed first has the power to remove admins or mods who are listed later.
All moderation actions are taken on the context menu of posts or comments. Click the three dot button to expand available mod actions, as shown in the screenshot below. All mod actions can be reverted in the same way.
![moderation_01.png](moderation_01.png)
![moderation_02.png](moderation_02.png)
| Action | Result | Permission level |
| ------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------- |
| Lock | Prevents making new comments under the post | Moderator |
| Sticky (Community) | Pin the publication to the top of the community listing | Moderator |
| Sticky (Local) | Pin the publication to the top of the frontpage | Admin |
| Remove | Delete the post | Moderator |
| Ban from community | Ban user from interacting with the community, but can still use the rest of the site. There is also an option to remove all existing posts. | Moderator |
| Appoint as mod | Gives the user moderator status | Moderator |
| Ban from site | Ban user from interacting with the community, but can still use the rest of the site. There is also an option to remove all existing posts. | Admin |
| Purge user | Completely delete the user, including all posts and uploaded media. Use with caution. | Admin |
| Purge post/comment | Completely delete the post, including attached media. | Admin |
| Appoint as admin | Gives the user administrator status | Admin |

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## Censorship resistance
Today's social media landscape is extremely centralised. The vast majority of users are concentrated on only a handful of platforms like Facebook, Reddit or Twitter. All of these are maintained by large corporations that are subject to profit motive and United States law. In recent years these platforms have increasingly censored users and entire communities, often with questionable justifications. It is only natural that those who are affected by this search for alternatives. This document is intended to help with the evaluation.
For this purpose we will consider as censorship anything that prevents a person from expressing their opinion, regardless of any moral considerations. All the options explained here also have legitimate uses, such as deleting spam. Nevertheless it is important for users to understand why their posts are getting removed and how to avoid it.
The first and most common source of censorship in this sense is the admin of a given Lemmy instance. Due to the way federation works, an admin has complete control over his instance, and can arbitrarily delete content or ban users. The moderation log helps to provide transparency into such actions.
The second source of censorship is through legal means. This often happens for copyright violation, but can also be used for other cases. What usually happens in this case is that the instance admin receives a takedown notice from the hosting provider or domain registrar. If the targeted content is not removed within a few days, the site gets taken down. The only way to avoid this is to choose the hosting company and country carefully, and avoid those which might consider the content as illegal.
Another way to censor is through social pressure on admins. This can range from spamming reports for unwanted content, to public posts from influental community members _demanding_ to take certain content down. Such pressure can keep mounting for days or weeks, making it seem like everyone supports these demands. But in fact it is often nothing more than a vocal minority. It is the task of admins to gauge the true opinion of their community. Community members should also push back if a minority tries to impose its views on everyone else.
All of this shows that it is relatively easy to censor a single Lemmy instance. Even a group of instances can be censored if share the same admin team, hosting infrastructure or country. Here it is important that an admin can only censor content on his own instance, or communities which are hosted on his instance. Other instances will be unaffected. So if there is a problem with censorship, it can always be solved by using a different Lemmy instance, or creating a new one.
But what if the goal was to censor the entire Lemmy network? This is inherently difficult because there is no single entity which has control over all instances. The closest thing to such an entity are the developers, because they can make changes to the code that all the instances run. For example, developers could decide to implement a hardcoded block for certain domains, so that they can't federate anymore. However, changes need to be released and then installed by instance admins. Those who are affected would have no reason to upgrade. And because the code is open source, they could publish a forked software version without these blocks. So the effect would be very limited, but it would split the project and result in loss of reputation for the developers. This is probably the reason why it has never happened on any Fediverse platform.
Lastly it might be possible to abuse software vulnerabilities for network-wide censorship. Imagine a bug in Lemmy or in the underlying software stack which allows the attacker to delete arbitrary content. This could remain undetected for a while if used sparingly, but would certainly be discovered after some time. And experience has shown that such critical flaws are fixed very quickly in open source software. It is also highly unlikely that critical vulnerabilities be present in multiple different Fediverse platforms at the same time.
In conclusion, the best way to avoid censorship on Lemmy is through the existince of many independent instances. These should have different admins, different hosting providers and be located in different countries. Additionally users should follow the development process to watch for changes that might create a centralized point of control for all instances. Based on this explanation it should be clear that censorship on Lemmy is difficult, and can always be circumvented. This is in contrast to centralized platforms like Facebook or Reddit. They are not open source and can't be self-hosted, so it is necessary to switch to an entirely different platform to avoid censorship. And due to lack of federation, such a switch means losing contact with users who decide to stay on the censored platform.

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## Theming
Users can choose between a number of built-in color themes. Admins can also provide additional themes and set them as default.
## Easy to install, low hardware requirements
Lemmy is written in Rust, which is an extremely fast language. Thats why it has very low hardware requirements. It can easily run on a Raspberry Pi or similar low-powered hardware. This makes it easy to administrate and keeps costs low.
## Language Tags
Lemmy instances and communities can specify which languages can be used for posting. Consider an instance aimed at Spanish users, it would limit the posting language to Spanish so that other languages can't be used. Or an international instance which only allows languages that the admin team understands. Community languages work in the same way, and are restricted to a subset of the instance languages. By default all languages are allowed (including _undefined_).
Users can also specify which languages they speak, and will only see content in those languages. Lemmy tries to smartly select a default language for new posts if possible. Otherwise you have to specify the language manually.
## Lemmy as a blog
Lemmy can also function as a blogging platform. Doing this is as simple as creating a community and enabling the option "Only moderators can post to this community". Now only you and other people that you invite can create posts, while everyone else can comment. Like any Lemmy community, it is also possible to follow from other Fediverse platforms and over RSS. For advanced usage it is even possible to use the API and create a different frontend which looks more blog-like.

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## History of Lemmy
The idea to make Lemmy was a combination of factors.
Open source developers like myself have long watched the rise of the “Big Five”, the US tech giants that have managed to capture nearly all the world’s everyday communication into their hands. We’ve been asking ourselves why people have moved away from content-focused sites, and what we can do to subvert this trend, in a way that is easily accessible to a non-tech focused audience.
The barriers to entry on the web are much lower than say in the physical world: all it takes is a computer and some coding knowhow… yet the predominating social media firms have been able to stave off competition for at least two reasons: their sites are easy to use, and they have huge numbers of users already (the “first mover” advantage). The latter is more important; if you’ve ever tried to get someone to use a different chat app, you’ll know what I mean.
Now I loved early Reddit, not just for the way that it managed to put all the news for the communities and topics I wanted to see in a single place, but for the discussion trees behind every link posted. I still have many of these saved, and have gained so much more from the discussion behind the links, than I have from the links themselves. In my view, its the community-focused, tree-like discussions, as well as the ability to make, grow, and curate communities, that has made Reddit the 5th most popular site in the US, and where so many people around the world get their news.
But that ship sailed years ago; the early innovative spirit of Reddit left with Aaron Schwartz: its libertarian founders have allowed some of the most racist and sexist online communities to fester on Reddit for years, only occasionally removing them only when community outcry reaches a fever pitch. Reddit closed its source code years ago, and the Reddit redesign has become a bloated anti-privacy mess.
Its become absorbed into that silicon valley surveillance-capitalist machine that commodifies users to sell ads and paid flairs, and propagandizes pro-US interests above all. Software technology being one of the last monopoly exports the US has, it would be naive to think that one of the top 5 most popular social media sites, where so many people around the world get their news, would be anything other than a mouthpiece for the interests of those same US coastal tech firms.
Despite the conservative talking point that big tech is dominated by “leftist propaganda”, it is liberal, and pro-US, not left (leftism referring to the broad category of anti-capitalism). Reddit has banned its share of leftist users and communities, and the Reddit admins via announcement posts repeatedly villify the US’s primary foreign-policy enemies as having “bot campaigns”, and “manipulating Reddit”, yet the default Reddit communities (/r/news, /r/pics, etc), who share a small number of moderators, push a line consistent with US foreign-policy interests. The aptly named /r/copaganda subreddit has exposed the pro-police propaganda that always seems to hit Reddit’s front page in the wake of every tragedy involving US police killing the innocent (or showing police kissing puppies, even though US police kill ~ 30 dogs every day, which researchers have called a “noted statistical phenomenon”).
We’ve also seen a rise in anti-China posts that have hit Reddit lately, and along with that comes anti-chinese racism, which Reddit tacitly encourages. That western countries are seeing a rise in attacks against Asian-Americans, just as some of the perpetrators of several hate-crimes against women were found to be Redditors active in mens-rights Reddit communities, is not lost on us, and we know where these tech companies really stand when it comes to violence and hate speech. Leftists know that our position on these platforms is tenuous at best; we’re currently tolerated, but that will not always be the case.
The idea for making a Reddit alternative seemed pointless, until Mastodon (a federated twitter alternative), started becoming popular. Using Activitypub (a protocol / common language that social media services can use to speak to each other), we finally have a solution to the “first mover” advantage: now someone can build or run a small site, but still be connected to a wider universe of users.
Nutomic and I originally made Lemmy to fill the role as a federated alternative to Reddit, but as it grows, it has the potential become a main source of news and discussion, existing outside of the US’s jurisdictional domain and control.

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